Study for "Massilia, Greek Colony": Four Male Nudes in the Act of Levering a Heavy Object
c. 1867/1868
Artist, French, 1824 - 1898
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Attributed to
Artwork overview
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Medium
graphite with pale brown wash, partially squared and extensively pricked, on light brown paper
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
sheet: 79.69 × 99.06 cm (31 3/8 × 39 in.)
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Accession Number
2019.45.18
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Estate of the artist (red wax seal of the atelier formerly affixed to old canvas backing, removed during conservation and now attached to the verso of the drawing; possibly no. 15 in the unpublished inventory written up by Maître Delapalme on 14 November 1898); by descent to Louis de Vaugelas (according to an inscription on the stretcher of the old backing canvas), the artist's nephew; Mme Puvis de Chavannes, La Maison de Cuiseaux, near Lyon; purchased by a private collector, and passed on by descent; (Colnaghi, London [Jean Luc Baroni]); Wiilliam B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee, Dallas, TX, May 1999; bequest to NGA, 2019.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1998
An Exhibition of Master Drawings. Colnaghi, New York and London, 1998, no. 46 (color).
1999
An Exhibition of Master Drawings. Colnaghi at Adam Williams Fine Art Ltd., New York, 1999, no. 46 (color).
2014
Mind's Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne. Dallas Museum of Art, 2014, no. 48 (color)(entry by William B. Jordan).
Bibliography
2010
Price, Aimée Brown. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. 2 vols. (New Haven and London, 2010): vol. 2, page 142, under no. 165.
Inscriptions
verso in graphite at upper left (upside down): groupe des constructeurs tirant sur l'echelle; verso center, red wax seal of the atelier